In need a self-priming pump that will suck 200 feet horizontally and 10 feet vertically

[micky]

I thought it would be a great idea to have a bird bath. I need a self-priming pump that will suck about 200 feet horizontally and 10 feet vertically. What should I look for?

My next door neigbhor had a bird bath when I was 8 years old. A cement one.

It was always empty, so I figured I too would get bored with it, maybe in a year.

So I get the bird bath and I was starting to get bored within a day.

Mostly because the water disappears so quickly.

Webpages had said it would have to be refilled every 2 to 4 days. I figured 4 days. More like one day.

If I take out the fountain, I think it lasts a lot longer, but I only have one day's data on that. The fountain is cool, solar powered, floats, 7 thin jets of water going up about 14 inches, with a rechargeable battery that keeps it going maybe an hour when it's cloudy or after there is no sun.

The fountains attract birds because they see the reflection of the sun off the water. Still water, like a mirror, only reflects in one direction. But moving water reflects in all directions.

So if I'm too busy/lazy/self-centered/hostile to refill the bird bath every day, espcially in the winter, I was thinking about something that refilled itself.

That is a fountain connected to a constant water supply that led to a little waterfall and a stream, to the edge of my property, under the easement to the edge of the hill that leads to the stream bed.

It's not likely I'll build this, but I like to plan.

The thing is, I can't use city water and keep it running 24/7/365. That's not right. So, how hard would it be to use an AC pump that sucks water from the stream, about 200 feet away and 10 feet lower than my yard (maybe less than 10, I can measure it). What size pump would I need? Self-priming. What size hose?

I could put a pool at the top with a switch to turn the pump off when that is full.

Is theree a category of pump, a name I could search for that would cut down how many pumps I have to look at? Is there a concise search term that refers to how far and low it can draw from?

[micky]

I knew they also sell water wigglers that just make little ripples in the water. I thought that was stupid, when you can have a pretty fountain, so I bought the fountain.

Here's a wiggler:

Now doesn't it look stupid?

The ads I've seen for the wigglers don't brag that they cause less evaporation, but that must be their big advantage, because they are nowhere near as attractive as a fountain.

But it finally occurred to me just now that that's why 5 different "nozzles" came with the fountain, including some boring ones that only send up one and another only two jets. I guess I'm forced to try them to cut down the evaporation. Still better than a wiggler. --BTW, it hasn't even been dry here, 50 to 75% humidity, probably 50.

But I'm still planning to build the stream. Now that I have the idea, it's far better than a little bird bath.

Have you noticed that there used to be, on Amazon videos, both thumbs up and thumbs down? Now there is only thumbs up!

I only gave them thumb down when the video had nothing about the product, when watching it was a waste of my time. That was fairly frequent, and they deserved to know their video just antagonized me. I guess they didn't like bad news and now they won't know.

[micky]

I came up with a better search: Pump for decorative stream.

This worked and also gave advice:

Waterfall Flow Rates

For waterfalls and streams, your pump should pump at least 100 gallons per hour for every inch wide the waterfall is. For more noise and "white-water" from your falls, increase the flow rate to 200 gallons per hour per inch of waterfall width.

Waterfalls made of water falling off cut stone, 100 to 150 gallons per hour per inch wide of waterfall will work. For waterfalls made of water falling off boulders, 200-500 gallons per hour per inch wide of waterfalls will create a nice white-water effect.

I had in mind 4 inches wide. Any way you cut it, it's quite a bit of water.

[angelica...]

That is a great idea.

Mine is a shallow plastic saucer full of water. In the winter I add a heater. The birds never have any trouble finding the bath. In the spring and early summer, I often see a mallard duck sitting in it.

Perhaps you're overthinking this. Is your social calendar so full that you can't go out there every day or two and top it up?

Cindy Hamilton

[Dean Hoffman]

Maybe a 12vdc self priming fuel transfer pump would work. Add a couple batteries and solar charging. It would be more efficient to put the pump as near the water as practical. You'll need to put screens on the intake.

[gfretwell]

Why not just let Baltimore County Utilities pump the water? You can use an electrical valve, a toilet tank valve or any kind of float valve to stop it when the bird bath is full. Keeping a bird bath full should cost a penny or two a day on your water bill and you will be using treated water so the bird bath won't be a science fair project. God only knows what is in that drainage ditch.

[Clare Snyder]

Put the pump at the source, not at the fountain and pretty much ANY pumpwill do the job. Most pumps don't work well pumping water - which is required to "suction prime" a pump. "Pressure proming" works a lot better.

[trader_4]

His pump drawing water for 200 feet wouldn't use much electricity, but it would be interesting to see how the small cost of that compares to the small cost of just using municipal water. I would not be surprised that the cost for the water is less.

[micky]

It was going to run all the time, as the pond at the top filled and overflowed into a stream going to the edge of the property.

They used to have urinals that ran all the time but I haven't seen one in decades.

Using city water would be like letting a faucet run all the time. Too wasteful. It's has to be the stream, or probably what most people do is just pump the water back up from the end of their little stream.

It turns out it's 40 feet, not 20, to the edge of the property (which is the stream bed but a part that is dry 99% of the time), but I was right, about 200 feet to the stream, where the stream is actually running, and about 10 feet lift needed.

60 feet of that is also in the empty part of the stream bed and when it floods 55 feet of it will be pushed down stream. I"ll just have to put it back each time, a couple times a year. I could bury that part too I suppose but there are rocks here wherever you dig and I'll bet there are even more in the stream bed (because the dirt on top gets washed away, but the rocks remain). (I recently heard 2nd hand from someone who knew this area before the houses were built and he said there was one or more truckloads of rocks removed, but there are still plenty left.

I can bury the input hose where it's in my yard, and I can bury the electric cord.

But I could also just run a return hose from the bottom of the little stream I want to make, only 40 feet. For some quirky reason of my own, I don't like this as much (something like the porchlight glass issue and what I think is "natural". One wouldn't be able to see my stream water pouring down the side of the hill into the real stream bed.) but it would be a lot less work and it's what I think everyone else does. -- then I'd only have to pump 40 feet sideways and 2 to 4 feet up. It just doesn't feel as real to me, even though the other way isn't real either.

(FWIW, I also don't have my own water bill. They installed water meters for every house, but it was I guess up to the HOA to hire someone to read them, and that requires opening the metal hatch in the sidewalk for every two houses. It was never done and instead, there is one meter for the 100+ houses and every house pays the same amount. So 99% of what my stream used would be paid for by my neighbors. Most would never see the stream and the rest might never think about the water bill, but it's not right of me, and when they do figure it out they'd be annoyed.)

[gfretwell]

We used to have ever flowing water fountains in DC but when water started being more expensive (price and environmentally) they stopped all of that. You can still use a float valve tho. The black flow master toilet valve is bullet proof. I have been using one as a pool fill for 20 years and it is still working fine. Use a little imagination and you could hide it in a cosmetic feature next to your bird bath. .

[trader_4]

Make sure you get all the DEP and other permits, we don't want to see you in jail.

[gfretwell]

I doubt DNR really cares about any "stream" in Bal'mer County. The health department might care tho. That will be polluted run off from streets and septic tanks.

[micky]

I think Martin Luther King was putting in a bird bath and fountain when he wrote his Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

At any rate, with the fountain, about half the water disappeared in one day.

With no fountain, I think it's been 6 days and it's still 95 or more % full.

I want more data on this. Maybe the birds will see the water even without a fountain. And maybe some don't like the stream itself because there is too much current and no quiet pools around me.

[micky]

This would be one more reason to abandon the plan to get water from the stream. If I were to put the pump there, to be washed downstream when it floods, held back only by the cord and the output hose, and have to retrieve and replace it every time. And running electcricty to a pump that will be 5 feet under water during the twice-yearly flood stage. That coudlnt' be good (even though I leave the exension cord in the grass all year and have only tripped the GFI breaker twice in 20 years.)

I'm turning my attention to pumping from the bottom of my stream. Only

40 feet away and on my property.

Or maybe the bird bath will work without a fountain.

Or maybe I'll just give up.

[Dean Hoffman]

Submersible water pumps are made to be underwater. Use some sort of anchor and and a cable to keep it in place. Lowes and Home Depot have them.

[gfretwell]

The water is just evaporating faster when you squirt it up in the air. It may attract birds so that is the trade off you are dealing with. I think you will find the pollution in that creek will quickly concentrate into a slimy mess if you use it. Using chlorinated water from the utility will keep the bird bath cleaner, longer but that chlorine will be gone in a few minutes if the are aerating it.